Product descriptions

What a product description is

A product description is the block of text on a product page that says what the item is, who it suits, what it is made of or made for, and what a buyer should expect when it arrives. It is written from the product itself: the specification sheet, the sample in your warehouse, and the questions your own staff get asked about it across the counter. One description per product, in your words.

It is not the paragraph that came down the supplier feed. That paragraph is already published, word for word, on every other shop selling the same item, so it gives a shopper no reason to buy it from you rather than from the shop beside you. It is also not the whole product page. Layout, images, reviews, the buy button and the reassurance around it are product page work; the description is the writing that sits inside that frame.

When you need them

Three situations bring people here. You have just taken on a range and the supplier has handed you a feed containing the same copy every other retailer received. You sell something that has to be chosen carefully, on size, fit, compatibility or grade, and the descriptions are not doing any of the choosing. Or your twenty best sellers still carry text written in a hurry years ago by somebody who has since left.

You do not need this for everything you stock, and I will say so on the first call. Commodity stock competing on price and delivery is not rescued by better prose. And if what is failing is the writing above the grid rather than the items inside it, that is category page copy, which is a smaller and cheaper job.

What goes in one

• The opening line that sorts. One sentence saying what this is and who it is for, so the wrong shopper leaves before they order it and send it back.
• Specification turned into reason. Not “316 stainless” but 316 stainless, so it can sit outdoors on the coast without pitting.
• The facts that prevent returns. Sizing measured against a real body or a real space, what fits what, what is in the box, and what the item is not suitable for.
• The detail only you hold. What your staff say when a customer picks it up, which of three variants people regret buying, how it compares with the one next to it.
• The words your customers use. The name shoppers give the product, which is often not the name the manufacturer gives it.

What you get

The descriptions. One per product, delivered in a spreadsheet keyed to your SKUs so they can be imported rather than pasted in one at a time. Each carries a short version for the grid tile and a full version for the page.

A specification-to-reason sheet. For ranges that share attributes, one page turning each recurring specification into the sentence that explains it, so your own people can write the next fifty in the same voice.

A template for the tail. Where a catalogue is too large to write out in full, a fill-in structure with the variable fields marked, and a short list of the things that must never be templated.

A worked example

An illustration. A Nova Scotia shop selling marine hardware and boat fittings online carries about four thousand SKUs. Around ninety of them account for most of the money. Every description on the site is the manufacturer's, and the identical text appears on a dozen competing shops.

The honest plan is not four thousand descriptions. The top ninety are written properly, one at a time, each from the item in hand: what grade of stainless, what it bolts to, which boat sizes it suits, and the mistake people make when ordering it. The next three hundred, the steady sellers, get a shorter description on the same pattern. The remaining tail is templated from a structure with the variable fields marked, so a seasonal staff member can fill it in without inventing a claim. The shop ends up with ninety pieces of writing no competitor has, instead of four thousand that read the same everywhere.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What you sell, which products earn the money, and what your staff get asked about them. No charge.
2. The list. You send a catalogue export. We agree which products are written individually, which are written short, and which are templated.
3. A fixed price in writing. A price per product, a batch rate above a volume, and the templating priced separately, all agreed before anything starts.
4. Samples and access. Product samples where they can be sent, photographs and specification sheets where they cannot, and twenty minutes with whoever handles your returns.
5. The first batch. Ten descriptions within five working days, so you can see the voice before the rest is written. One round of changes sets the pattern.
6. The rest, in batches. Forty to sixty a week once the pattern is agreed, delivered as they are finished rather than all at the end.

What it costs

Product descriptions are priced per product, in CAD, and the rate falls with volume, because the twentieth item in a range takes less time than the first. Templating the tail of a large catalogue is quoted separately as a one-off piece of work. How many products, how much usable material already exists, and whether samples can be sent all move the figure, so the number is set after the half-hour call and fixed in writing before any writing starts. The pricing page shows the shapes of work I offer and how quotes are built.

What happens next

Once the descriptions are in, most shops find the remaining friction sits elsewhere. The questions that still arrive by email become answers on the product page, which is the cheapest way there is to cut returns. Shoppers who cannot choose between three items are handled by a guide that walks them through the decision. If you also sell through a portal, the same products need listings written inside those rules, because nothing written for your own site will fit there unchanged. Each of those is a separate decision. The descriptions are finished work on their own, and nothing further is assumed.